Tokyo // Day 3

This day onwards the bf no longer has to attend work! Yay~

Actually we didn’t really do much research on where to go? So this day was a day of just tagging along with the Bf’s manager’s husband cus he like knows a lot of places!

Just so you know, we actually had no idea where we were heading to at all. Lol.

First we went to the Gaiemmae subway station (Tokyo Metro Ginza Line) which is the closest to our hotel proximity and bought a 170 yen ticket.

Alighted at Shimbashi subway station and bought another ticket priced at 320 yen. If I didn’t remember wrongly, we alighted at Daiba subway station. While we were on our way on the train, we passed by the rainbow bridge! It was pretty but because it was in the morning, so we didn’t managed to see it with all the pretty lights.

After we alighted at the Daiba station, I was very hungry cus I didn’t take the breakfast from the hotel and so, I grabbed an onigiri from the convenience store conveniently! Haha.

We went to Aquacity Odaiba, I bought a top from the Lowrys Farm in that mall and that was it. Then I saw an indoor aquarium so I went to snap some photos to show the little Hannah at home in Singapore haha. While snapping photos of the fishes, I chanced upon the view outside of the mall!! It was the rainbow bridge in a clearer view than when we were on the train! So how can we miss this chance to take photo with it in the background right? Then again, while we were taking photos with the rainbow bridge I saw the view on the other side!! The Fuji TV Building!

Lunch time at a random food court (?) in the mall, I had a hard time deciding what to eat cus I don’t feel like eating everything in the food court. In the end I reluctantly decided on the Gyudon which was surprisingly good! The broth was super rich in taste. Now I feel like eating Gyudon already~

Next stop was DiverCity Tokyo Plaza.

Nothing much except for the life sized Gundam statue at the Gundam Front Tokyo outside the mall.

Last stop was the Venus Fort but in between we past by the Toyota Mega Web which is a giant Toyota showroom and we were so impressed with the museum that was exhibiting cars from the past decades. I would say it was kinda worth a visit since we were already in Odaiba.

Venus Fort has a few outlet stores like Nike, Levi’s, G-Star Raw, etc… Nothing for me though.

When it was time to leave Odaiba, we went to the Aomi station to get tickets to go to Shimbashi station then Shibuya station!

First stop in Shibuya was of course the Hachiko statue outside of the subway station! Take the Hachiko exit to get there.

Then it was the famous Shibuya crossing! The Shibuya crossing is a large intersection in front of the Hachiko Exit. The intersection is heavily decorated by neon advertisements and giant video screens and gets flooded by pedestrians each time the crossing light turns green, making it a popular photo and movie filming spot.

To be honest, it was not really like super super crowded when we were there. Or should I say I expected more people actually. Cus in movies or photos I saw online, the crowd was really bad lol.

We were all starving from the lunch we had in Odaiba and so straight to the dinner!

Randomly walked into a Japanese restaurant and they have really nice food!! Yum in my tum.

After dinner, we decided to split way for shopping so we don’t need to waste time waiting for one another. Not long after, I saw this!! Croissant Taiyaki!!! I just need to get one despite my exploding tummy.

My loots from Shibuya were quite measly. In fact I had the most expectations from Shibuya 109, but didn’t manage to get anything there. To think that I was so excited to see the many brands I used to love when I still had the habit of buying the ViVi magazine every month years back. I need to lose weight then go back to Tokyo again! Haha.

Oh, another shop worth mentioning… (Food again) Pablo. Pablo is a cheese tart specialized store where you can choose two types of baking condition from rare to medium.

I forgot what we ordered but there were already quite a lot of items on the menu sold out. It was yummy but the issue was that the staff cannot understand us when we asked if we can pay for it and leave the cheese tart in the shop and collect later. I repeated and plus action so much some more. In the end, we got no choice but to take the tart with us and walk around.

The disaster was when we were back in the hotel. I opened it up wanting to snap a photo of it but realised because it was so soft inside, the top layer of the cheese tart sank. Sigh.

Tbh, initially I actually wanted to have a slice of it after snapping the photo but after I saw what it became I totally lost the appetite haha.

It was spa time again before I end the night.

It was also the last night for us in this hotel.

Oh this! Kinda unique as a souvenir. I bought it for my colleagues and also majority belongs to Serene as she was the one who asked me to help her get haha.. It's just some small figurines that you put on your cup.. for fun. Ya.

Tokyo // Day 2

This post didn’t came easy haha. I wanted to edit photos for this post yesterday, but I don’t know what I did with my MacBook, it actually temporary died on me! It could not get started up at all. I spent hours and hours since yesterday afternoon trying to fix it following instructions I found from Google and was so desperate cus nothing was working and the last thing I want is to reformat my MacBook.

This evening, I finally feel that I should try to reinstall the mac software and I was so glad I did! MacBook up and running as usual and started editing the minimal photos (thank god) I have for Tokyo day 2.

Woke up to a rainy morning in Tokyo!

By the time I was done preparing, the rain has stopped though haha…

I wanted to go to the Meiji Shrine (明治神宮, Meiji Jingū) on this day, even though the Bf was not with us that day, I still decided to go ahead with it with his mum first, if he wants to visit the shrine as well, then we can just go together again since it was pretty near to our hotel, or rather Harajuku.

To be honest, for this trip I didn’t made a very good/fulfilling itinerary cus I didn’t do a lot of research, so it was kind of relaxing and we didn’t have to rush to a lot of places as I kept the “must-go” places to the minimal.

So, since we’ve got a lot of time to spare, I suggested to the Bf’s mum that we take a slow walk to the shrine and take the chance to “look see” on the way. How do we know the way to the shrine? Google Maps ftw!

The Bf’s mum has her breakfast in the hotel every morning while I was still in my beauty sleep and so I do not have to worry about her breakfast cus for me, I don’t usually take breakfast but we are in Tokyo!! Haha. I just had to go into the convenience store to get an onigiri or smth!

Why can’t Singapore’s 7-11 be like Tokyo! I know we do have a decent selection of food and drinks too but I want insane amount of choices for us like the Japanese!!

According to Google Maps, the duration of the walk from our hotel to Meiji Jinggu was about 30 mins, but actually it could have been shorter, cus I searched wrongly! Oops. We arrived in Yoyogi Park instead of Meiji Jinggu and I didn’t even realize that. Haha.

So I did a search on the maps app again while we walked back to the entrance of the Yogi Park.

While we were walking out, I thought the scenery was actually quite nice so I asked the Bf’s mum to help me snap a photo for the first time and realized she doesn’t know how to use the camera! Not only does she not know how to use it, she doesn’t know how to look at the LCD screen too. Not judging but I was am really surprised.

My camera does not come with a viewfinder, but she kept putting the camera so close to her eyes, I think she thought there was a viewfinder. I was really… like I don’t know to cry or laugh. Then I told her to look at the screen, aim for me in the screen then press the shutter button on top. You know what she told me? “I cannot see you in the screen, I can only see myself.” LOL.  I really wanted to burst out in laughter but I was also quite annoyed tbh cus the sun was quite strong and I had to stand there and wait for her to aim and snap, then wait so long already tell me can only see herself. Haiyo.

I told her to use her hands to cover the gap in between her face and the camera, then she finally can see me in the screen but when she removed her hands to reach for the shutter button, she told me cannot see me again. In my heart was really like wtf. But the scenery was really quite nice and I really want a shot there! (Though I know it wouldn’t come out too well anyways)

She managed to do it in the end and then I asked for a second shot in the park and third/fourth in the Meiji Shrine and I think she got it.

Mandatory shot at the first Torii.

There was a total of 3 Torii gates before reaching the main shrine building. Oh, I got to know from a YouTube video that we got to bow every time we walk past the Torii! I only saw a few people who practiced that when we were there, but I told the Bf’s mum we should just do it anyways. Another heads up from the video is that, we should ALWAYS walk along the side when we pass a Torii cus the middle is the God’s path.

So after getting past the 3^rd Torii we saw the Temizuya on our left just before the main entrance to the shrine. I also remembered how the girl in the video demonstrated how to do it the correct way. So I guided the Bf’s mum along while I do it too.

Basically it was just, pick up the ladle with your right hand to rinse your left hand first, and then switched to the ladle on your left to rinse your right hand, lastly switch hand again and pour the remaining water on your left hand and rinse your mouth, put the ladle back. Do not drink the water and do not touch the ladle with your lips directly.

After that, we just went in and pray! I used a 5 yen to make a wish cus it was said that 5 yen which is gone in Japanese means good luck! Oh, there is also a proper way to pray!

First, we put the 5 yen into the offertory box then bow twice, clap twice and make a wish then bow once again. When I clapped, I made sure my right hand is slightly lower then my left cus it was said that the left hand signifies God and the right hand signifies us. So the girl in the video said by lowering our right hand, we lower ourselves to pay respect to the God. Don’t have to lower your right hand during the bow though.

After praying, I brought the Bf’s mum to get some Omamori and also an Ema for each of us to write our wishes.

The next stop after Meiji Jinggu was Harajuku, again. Haha. We only got there quite late at night on Day 1 so not counted! Err actually we went Harajuku quite a lot of times throughout this trip lol.

Mandatory Takeshita Street shot. Haha.

So happy to see my favourite brand in Tokyo but was too lazy to try cus I only had like 1 or 2 items that I want to try so I gave it a miss and didn’t got anything there.

Went for an early dinner close to 5pm. I decided to bring the Bf’s mum to have the Ichiran Ramen which was so highly raved about online and people around me was all asking me to go eat that ramen lol.

It was good but not fantastic la… Maybe I not a very ramen kind of person before this Tokyo trip so I really can’t tell what’s so fantastic about this ramen. Not that I don’t like it, I do like it and wanted to have it again after I tried it but it’s just not to the extend like the reviews on the other blogs I read, they said they got the urge to fly to Japan just for this ramen. Seriously.

Oh one thing that is pretty good about this ramen place is that we can customise how strong we want it to be and how spicy whatever whatever. & I looove the eggs. The eggs were what I craved for the most after I’m back in Sg. I kept going to 7-11 to get the Hanuka Eggs to go with instant noodles for lunch in office. Haha. 害我一直吃泡面！

Met up with the Bf (like finally) after Ichiran but he was still around the hotel area after we were done so we had to hang around that street until he reached. While walking along that street, I saw people eating some super long french fries and I wanna have it too! How can I miss out on that as a french fries lover right!

It was quite good actually, just that it was a little too much for 2 of us, so we kept some for the Bf since he was already on his way to us.

Walked around Harujuku with the Bf once again and bought a camo cap to share from Stussy. Tbh, I seldom wear cap nowadays but I really want one after he misplaced my Hater one.

Saw the Eggs and Things café that I wanted to try so badly but I was super full from the ramen, the fries and mineral water haha.

Our last shopping stop for the night was this.

We then head back to the hotel and then the bf kept pestering me to look for curry rice places but it was already like 10+ I think, don’t quite remember but I know during that time a lot of places were already closed! I was unable to find any via Google, so I told him if he really want then we just go down and walk around to see what are available, rather than staying in hotel search and search and wasting time.

And surprise surprise! We really managed to find a curry rice place lol. The food was kinda bad though. Haha wasted our calories.

Bought this ice cream recommended by Eunice to try and I like it too! It was so milky and the ice cream was so dense it doesn’t melt very quickly so I thought I could enjoy it slowly while walking back to the hotel. But then right, halfway down the ice cream I realised I was too bloated already so it had to go into the trash bin in the end.

Soaked myself for slightly more than an hour in a warm bath with my lush bath bomb in Sakura scent! Nothing impressive though, was kinda disappointed by the bath bomb.

Ending the post with some cosmetics I bought for the day!